Joe Roller Memorial Green Big Year

Just some thoughts before I get into the birds. It's now 10 October (as I write this). I messaged with a buddy today about how far behind I am on the blog. I started some writing tonight and looked at my species list and realized that I don't have much to write about. I have not gotten a new bird in THREE WEEKS. It's fall migration and I've gotten nothing new since Common Tern on 20 Sept 2021. I don't know if this is attributed to how successful my spring effort was or the dearth of new and interesting birds this fall. Probably both. I guess the recent drought in birds was not unexpected as it's been unusually warm, dry, and has had consistent southerly winds. None of these are conducive to bringing good birds. On the bright side, I guess, it's been a good time to forced off the bike while rehabbing an injury. I haven't been able to ride for over a week, but I'll be back soon. I guess it's good that there's not really much going on right now!...

9 September 2021 I title this post as "a couple passerines" because that's about all there was this fall.  Migration has been abysmal. There have been very few warblers, vireos, sparrows, anything. It's been tough to find much of anything.  I'm very glad that I out some effort into going after a couple more expected migrant warblers, like palm, as everything has been scarce or absent this fall. Maybe we'll get some late fall warblers, but maybe not, thus I'm really pleased that I got what I did this spring. You only need one! Smoky sunrise On 8 Sept, local birders found a flock of warblers and a Cassin's vireo at Chatfield State Park. I met Joey Kellner there the next morning and we scoped the lake for an early Sabine's Gull (no dice) and then hit the Plum Creek Delta area to try to find the warbler flock. After a bit of work, we found quite a nice flock of warblers, incl a few Townsend's, and Joey called out "Cassin's Vireo". I n...

4 September 2021 After getting green big year bird #250 and missing a jaeger fly by a few days earlier, which was likely a Long-tailed and was never refound, today was the day. However, the journey was quite something! I had touched base with some local birders about birding  plans and decided to go to Cherry Creek State Park (CCSP). I still need some shorebirds, so I opted to head east (19 miles) to the area where shorebirds had been seen recently, which is also the only decent shorebird habitat around since Chatfield is way high for this time of year. I was targeting Pectoral Sandpiper and Sanderling, the latter I missed numerous times by a day or an hour at Chatfield State Park already this year and decided it was time to go get the one hanging out at Cherry Creek. I take off at dawn and ride the 15 miles to the west entrance of Cherry Creek. It's not a terrible ride by any means, but it's a lot of slight uphill and maybe mentally I've come to not love the ride for some ...